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Wednesday, December 4, 2013

CEO: B&H Airlines in an “alarming” state

Tough times for B&H Airlines

The CEO of B&H Airlines, Amir Jažić, has told local media the situation at the company is “alarming” and every new day at the airline is “distressing”. Mr. Jažić added it is questionable as to how and until when the airline will be able to continue to operate. The comments come as B&H Airlines finds itself with outstanding loan payments it doesn’t have the means to repay to several banks. “We are just waiting to see who will block us first”, the CEO adds. B&H Airlines has outstanding loans to the Hypo Group for the purchase of two ATR72s.

Recently, the Hypo Group delivered a report to the Bosnian national carrier outlining debt owed to the bank. “According to the report the debt is enormous. They are demanding from us to pay it back. Everything has to be checked first since a lot of things do not add up”, Mr. Jažić explains. Earlier this year the airline was grounded for several weeks after the Hypo Group blocked its accounts. The issue was resolved when the Federation government approved a 1.3 million euro cash injection for B&H Airlines. More than half of the allocated funds were used for fuel, followed by handling, landing and maintenance fees. The government forks out 3.5 million euros for the carrier on an annual basis. It has blamed Turkish Airlines for leaving B&H last year in a worse state than prior to the acquisition in 2008.

Comments made by the CEO regarding the airline’s finances might not be the smartest of PR moves and won’t do much to comfort potential passengers. B&H Airlines will launch flights to Belgrade on December 16. The Federation government has been searching for a part owner for B&H ever since Turkish Airlines relinquished its 49% stake in the carrier.

41 comments:

Somebody in Bosnia is working to destroy airline for personal gain. Well known approach - reduce value to zero then buy for nothing and make money. Market is there, but in a dysfunctional country, how can you expect a functional government owned airline.

I was just in Zurich and I saw that Adria sends its CRJ-200. Is the market that limited that they can't fill a CRJ-900? With these oil prices I can't imagine they are making money with these little birds.

I've been flying on the ZRH-LJU route for more than 30 times and I can tell you I've been flying on all types of JP's aircraft (even on A320). Their LF on this route is highly seasonal. When thereis much tranait pax like Christmas time or if there is some fair in Switzerland they send bigger machines. But however I do agree with you that it's impossible to make money with the CRJ200 eventhough there is rarely a ticket under 300€ on LJU-ZRH.Btw. Now I understand why there were the jokes in SFRJ about the Bosniaks. Not really a smart move by the CEO:-)))) Sincerety is not a must for this position:-)))

Not sure where you got 300€!? Checked several dates in December and in all months till June 2014 and found out the average oneway price ZRH-LJU on Adria to be 100-120€, average return 180-200€. Not sure why you are paying such a price unless you buy flex tickets.

Do you think that AirSerbia flights from Banja Luka would affect B&H flights from the same city? Do you think that B&H will get more trouble then? Or BNX pax had no big share in Copenhagen and Zurich flights?

In my opinion, new Air Serbia line BEGBNX will increase the number of passengers on BNXZRH line served by BH airlines.At any rate, BH Airlines has done a lot for BNX keeping it alive all these years.I hope the FED gov will stick up for them and pay the loans mentioned.

Oh please end that agony - shut that airline down. I am from Bosnia and had on couple of flights reasonably good experience with them...but come on. They missed their chance to develop lucrative flights / destinations. Without vision and additional investment they are just eating up tax payers money. BiH is a poor country for this kind of luxury - throwing money on ailing airline. Only chance is that they invest in jet plane, increase Zurich and Copenhagen frequencies try go get the code share and open SJJ - FCO via OMO, SJJ-FRA via BNX and re-open SJJ -VIE. Unfortunately this will not happen and they have to shut them down

I'm really sorry for this off topic (I really do hope things get better for B&H). Today was my first flight with Air Serbia. BEG-PRG and the load factor was 100%. The flight was full which was nice to see. Amazing service for such a short flight as well.

Let me also add how happy I am about this. I am sure that Prague will be a good route for them. Not only will they have quite a lot of O&D but I am sure they will have a lot of connecting passengers. Please let us know how the flight went on Sunday.

It's really good to see all these routes perform well. Actually, if you check flights to Ljubljana for December you will see that a lot of them have the lowest booking fare sold out. Promising, especiailly since we are not in season now.

sorry for OT but any reason Air Serbia flight to/ from Banja Luka today was canceled? If it was due to poor loads then I think they still should have flown to show their dedication to the route and to win passengers over

Well, some three years ago, the then operational and technical executive director asked the Category II Landing System to be provided at BNX in order to avoid such problems on pretty many days during the winter season but his demand was ruled out by the then general director and the rest of the Managing Board and of course by the Supervisory Board and the Ministry. They all have never had an ear for technical problems and never listened to him. His idea was to bring about BNX into position of being alternative airport to SJJ at least in winter.Owing to a lot of problems at SJJ during winter and pretty enough crowded traffic there, the system at bnx would pay itself off in time of five to seven years, he was hoping. And having Cat II makes the airport more serious.

JU 405, YU-ANJ, from Copenhagen to Belgrade is currently diverting to Skopje.

JU 365, YU-ANV, from Amsterdam is over Stara Pazova and it will not be landing either.

Lufthansa E190 from Frankfurt just landed. I guess they are equipped with CAT III system. Air Serbia to Abu Dhabi and Aeroflot to Moscow are departing without a problem as they seem to have the CAT III too.

I think that BH Airlines should be very grateful to Air Serbia for doing this type of cooperation and cooperation in general. BH Airlines are required to show their true face and justify the trust given by Air Serbia. If they fail this time and these operations, really it will be the end of this regional flag carrier. So, go on BH , go on Air Serbia !

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